Quesillo

Busy as a bee. Work has kept me very busy and quite unavailable to sit down and write an honest to goodness post.

But I am here. Still here.

It was a special day. April 23 2016. It was my son’s First Holy Communion. And it was a very special occasion. A very special celebration. The mass was the highlight of the day. My son’s receiving the holy communion for the very first time is and will always be a landmark event. It is something like a right of passage.

At home we prepared some thing for friends and family. One of which is the dessert called quesillo.

This recipe was taught to me by a Venezuelan friend. Thus, this is a Venezuelan dessert. It is a simple dessert to make. If I can do it, so can you.

3. Bring the heat up until the sugar starts to caramelize. It is important to monitor the sugar once it starts to caramelize because if left unattended it may burn.

Caramelize the sugar.

You’ll never know what happens when you cook.

When you love what you’re doing, it shows in the food you cook.

4. Once the sugar has evenly caramelized, remove the quesillera from the heat and let it cool. Set aside.

Part 2:

Preparing the custard.

Place all ingredients together in a mixing bowl and mix. 10 eggs. 2 small cans of condensed milk. Use the empty condensed milk cans as measuring cups for the evaporated milk. Pour in the mixing bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract.

Put the quesillera in a steamer and cover with foil so the steam will not go to the custard. Steam in low-to-medium heat for one hour.

Put the quesillera in the steamer. Cover with foil. Steam for at least one hour or when the mix stiffens.

After an hour check to see if the custard has cooked through. Stick a toothpick in the custard. If nothing sticks to the toothpick, the quesillo is done.

Challenge: Place your serving platter on the quesillera, and in one quick movement, flip everything over. Let the quesilla slide out of the quesillera by itself.

Invert the quesillera on your serving platter. Invert. Let rest to let the quesillo separate from the quesillero.

At the end of this endeavor, you may find that this recipe is very much like the Filipino dessert, leche flan. There are some subtle differences in how they are made and cooked. We’ll discuss the difference later on in one of my future blogs. For now, try this recipe and enjoy!